


Strangers

by extremesoft



Category: Formula 1 RPF, Motorsport RPF
Genre: 2019 Formula 1 Season, And feels, Azerbaijan GP 2019, Fingerfucking, Groping, Hotels, Light Angst, M/M, Mirrors, Smut, but hey feels and fingering yay!, honestly that's it, i know you wouldn't want to think of it, jeepers almighty how did i manage, well done Baku
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 12:35:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18800467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extremesoft/pseuds/extremesoft
Summary: It's something nearly visceral woven into him, a blend of ambivalence and mindless desire, that suddenly seizes him. And he had almost managed to bury it.





	Strangers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [singlemalter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlemalter/gifts).



> Words can't describe how much I missed being able to write after such an exhausting Easter I couldn't pen a word in days, and I felt so happy when this idea struck me after finally having gotten some proper sleep! The birthing process of this one was an interesting ride through highs and lows (the lows basically hitting after every ~1000 words) and research, and I could've probably finished 'Unspoken' three times in the time it took to scribble this... but it'll come, it'll come :'D Uhh.
> 
> Considering how little actually, like, happens here, it is so far beyond me how I managed the behemoth of a word count. I should probably rethink my life nice and hard. :')
> 
> This goes to L, my favourite nerf-herder perv, who wrote one (again stellar) fic in which there was one (again stellar) sentence that basically served as the starting point to all this. This is only my feeble attempt to settle some of my debts (!!!!) and with all you've said and done and written you really do deserve so much more and better, but. ❤️  
>   
> And as always, I do so hope that every single one of you enjoys reading this; let me know in any way if you do! I treasure and cherish you all beyond measure ❤️

It's the fact that Daniel calls that speaks the loudest to Max about how dire his need must be. Max rarely gets phone calls - old-fashioned, inconvenient, intrusive in how much personality they include and require - anyway from anyone else than the team personnel and his family. And they have all already called and said that you were good and you did good and the weekend was solid and it was all _good good good_ when good is nowhere near _enough_ and there still sits a thirst in Max he can’t find a way to quench.

As if anything would truly ever be enough. As if he would ever want to make the mistake of falling backwards into the feeling of contentment when there still exists something more to take. But-

It’s in the way silences get to him more these days, harsh and deafening. It’s in the way he feels isolated when surrounded by flocks of adoring people, watching them through a screen of mist and white noise. It’s in the way he feels detached from his own smile and his own laughter whenever it’s with Pierre and in the way there is no true fight. It’s in the way he walks out of the shower now with the thick, white towel draped around his waist and surrenders without question to the overpowering urge to turn the TV on just to flee from the noise of his own mind. The howling of the engines and the cheers of the crowd masked it in the afternoon, his engineers conveniently took his ominously wandering thoughts elsewhere when the howling and the cheers ceased. But now, in his own bubble and his own quietude - a stillness the TV tries to puncture and scarcely succeeds - it slithers down his back along a chilled droplet that takes off from the short hair on the back of his head, leaves a trail of gooseflesh right next to the trail of water and calls itself loneliness before disappearing into the towel where the fabric meets the small of his back.

Then Daniel calls. The first chords of the song Max uses as his ringtone explode into the air and startle Max to an extent he is not proud of. He doesn’t expect it to be anyone in particular but he expects it to be Daniel perhaps the least; and the name stamped on the screen above the touch buttons makes an unnamed shiver shoot through him. He can’t place what it is he feels, what it is he is, when he picks the phone up and stares at the restless screen for an oddly spellbound moment before answering. Not alarmed, not anxious. _Awake_.

(And what does it matter what it’s named if only Daniel can make him feel _something_.)

“Hi”, he says and sounds oddly coy and clumsy to his own ears. It flashes to him fractionally whether he should’ve introduced himself by name and then he gives his head a small shake only he knows of. They’re not strangers. But if anything, they send messages, a couple of short, amicable scribbles here and there.  
“Hi there”, Daniel returns softly. Max is trying to gauge the shades and shadows of his soft voice from the first letter of the first word and fails to interpret any of them. Tired, perhaps? Agitated? It wouldn’t be a surprise, given the race.  
“Y’ tucked in yet? Am I interrupting?”  
Max snorts quietly to himself at the first part of the inquiry and Daniel still catches the minute crackle it distorts the line with. “A valid question at this bloody hour”, he adds bluntly and Max swears he can hear the small smile adding a layer of gold foil to the words.  
“No, not tucked in yet”, Max admits without shame and glances at the television. No, not tucked in yet. He is standing in the middle of his hotel room in near darkness, still only clad in the cooling towel and lit by almost nothing but the television screen; the trees and the city lights spread before him, far below, behind the windows, and if he only focused on the view enough - which he doesn’t do - he could see his own reflection as a ghost in the middle of all the glimmer.  
“What is it?”

“Nah”, deflects Daniel first and Max patiently waits for the continuation he knows will tail. “I just, uh- I couldn’t remember where you are, which hotel it was that you folks are in?”

Daniel wouldn’t have needed to ask before. Daniel never needed to ask even for his room number before. Max thinks of it unwillingly, how they used to know, and it makes a weight plunge into his gut.  
“I’m in Fairmont”, he shrugs then and listens to the whooshing noise the line makes with mild, flat amusement as Daniel whistles. “What, where are you?”  
“We humbly settled for the Marriott”, Daniel laments and draws a smile out of Max again. And Max doesn’t have time to even begin to express his deepest condolences for the degradation of Daniel’s living conditions before Daniel asks _listen, mind if I paid you a visit?_ and the words leave phantoms of sparkling static waltzing on the line. Bored? Nervous?  
“You mean now?” Max starts and feels his mouth drying. Then he swallows the _it’s really late_ that almost follows suit. The muffled sound of tyres screeching coming from the TV nearly twinges his ears in the sudden flood of hypersensitivity that spreads across him.  
“Yeah, now”, repeats Daniel, and there is something still lingering on the line that Max chases and never quite catches. Max hears rustling and a quiet sigh and can picture Daniel rubbing his cheek, weary and discouraged. “Unless of course you’d like to get yourself some well-earned Zs instead of looking at my useless dumbass face.”

Lonely? Lost? 

Max never truly considers declining and he thinks for no more than an inkling’s worth of time - long enough for the _typing…_ to appear above the messages they usually send, perhaps long enough for Daniel’s heart to thump louder and harder against his ribs once or twice, but not long enough to allow either of them to begin to hesitate.  
“Sure, you can come if you want”, he says - he reflexively glances at his left wrist to check the time that isn't there to be seen since he hasn't exactly showered with his watch on. “If it's that bad in the Marriott. It will take something like fifteen or twenty minutes, right?”  
“Mayb’, something like that”, agrees Daniel. He is so quick and ambiguous it makes Max suspect he is in fact already out of the door, or at least fully dressed. “I’ll see ya soon enough. Text me the room number, alright?”  
“No, I'll have to get you from the lobby”, Max points out and can't help a light chuckle at that, a burst of air tinted with helpless melancholy. Daniel never needed to be picked up before. “You won't be able to get up here without the key card.”  
“Fuck, you're right”, Daniel says, his voice jumping slightly to what Max assumes are footsteps. It sounds like an actual compliment. “Okay, you pick me up, stallion.”

They hang up in all possible friendliness and Max is so fazed by the occurrence and Daniel's casual flirt and just _Daniel_ he can barely comprehend what he should do next - get rid of the towel and throw it on the bed, hurriedly search for some clothes to wear, no, not the pajama pants, settle for shorts and a t-shirt, decide to not wear a cap over damp hair. They're not strangers yet if anything, Max suddenly feels _strange_. He runs his hand through his hair in front of the mirror - an idle gesture of an uneasy adolescent getting ready to meet someone who makes their gut explode with butterflies - before snatching his key from the desk and heading downstairs.

It doesn't take Max full ten minutes in total to get there and still he can see Daniel waiting for him already once he gets out of the elevator and takes a few steps across the sand-coloured, hauntingly spacious lobby. Daniel has hid himself behind one of the monolithic brown pillars adorning the space; he leans against it with his other knee bent and his posture is effortless as always, his indistinguishable grey cap shadows his face and his sunglasses obediently reflect the dim lights and the fluorescence of the screen of his phone. Max walks next to the walls and behind the pillars, tries to avoid any excessive attention from the receptionists and the three men in suits on the other side of the lobby. He approaches Daniel with quickening steps and when Daniel hears him and snaps his head up - when Max catches the grace of the curve of his neck and the depths of his gaze, even from behind the sunglasses, brightening with the smile that carves an arch on him - he feels like he could melt to place and has to remind himself to not stop to stare.  
“Hi”, he says, and again wonders how oddly coy and clumsy he sounds to his own ears. It’s only Daniel. No. It’s never _only_ Daniel.  
“Hiya”, says Daniel, husky as if somehow relieved, an intoxicated nuance sticking to his smile. He lifts his arms and puts his right palm on Max's bicep, then stops for a jarred second, as if unsure whether to proceed with the hug; and when Max catches on and ties his arms around Daniel, the embrace is brief and ginger and tense and somehow encapsulates everything that lies underneath, hidden in them and engraved into the pillar partly concealing them. Daniel shouldn't really be anywhere near the Fairmont, they can't hug proper in the lobby, Max should get sleep.

And it continues like that when they make their way to the elevator, sneaking like thieves, almost afraid to say a whole sentence to each other. Max is blatantly aware of the fact that there are bound to be security cameras all around them and he has never felt so rigid under their vigilant stare. They stage an awkward distance for the one camera in the elevator and the button screams at them the same things that echoed in the vastness of the lobby ( _what’s happening? he really shouldn’t be here!_ ) when Max presses it. They glance - and glance - swift sideways looks, halves of words and unsure laughs, Daniel’s smile is tremulous and Max’s insides slowly coil into knots. _They are not strangers_ yet it feels bizarre to the point of unreal, distorted like their reflections standing side by side on the surface of the metallic doors.

 _What is Daniel here for?_ write Max’s footsteps on the floor as he leads Daniel to his room. Pleasant company? Angry fucking? Tired, pointless complaining about the race? The door handle says _I have no idea but it’s all madness_ as it clicks when Max turns it and Max’s heart shouts _I’ve missed you so much_ on top of everything else.  
“I bet your room is much smaller than this, and full of rats”, joke his brain and mouth as a mandatory effort to ease his stubborn tension once Daniel toes his tennis shoes off and eyes around him. Daniel gifts him with a snicker and it somehow fills the whole room and encloses Max in itself. The longing for Daniel he has kept confined slithers in him like a serpent and gently coils around his chest and neck.  
“Yeah, I mean, it's so below me, can you imagine I only got golden taps in the bathroom instead of platinum”, mourns Daniel and shrugs, indifferent and by no means serious. And Max is bound to snigger at him, of course. The bitter sweetness of the moment slays through him and makes him almost panic - how Daniel can make him laugh like that, how the mere proximity of Daniel feels like the rays of spring suns that break the sly ice in him, how it's still Daniel after everything. The serpent tightens its grasp on him.

“What're you watching?” asks Daniel straight after having shot one glance at the mostly forgotten television and flopping carefreely on the sofa. “What even is this shit, it looks something like _The Fast and the Furious_ , part one-hundred and sixteen? They're never going to fucking end, I swear. They're probably going to star us two when we're around our seventies and bored out of our stupid heads, y’ know.”  
Max chuckles helplessly once more and scratches the back of his neck in desperate confusion. Daniel looks untouched, more a memory than a being of flesh. The raven black of his eyes and hair molds into a band of onyx around his head. Shivers run down Max's backbone.  
“I don't really know what it is, I just put it on the background to-”

He suddenly falls silent with a lack of words and a lack of excuses. He can't explain even to himself why he suddenly needs the noise so much, where the need to drown the contents of his mind rises from - what could there possibly be he could say to _Daniel_ about it?

Then Daniel looks at him and Max realizes - to his horror, relief, disbelief? - that he could well _know_ already, without Max's indistinct reasons and faltering explanations. Max swallows and tries not to look sad and apologetic. It’s still Daniel after everything, the one who is bound to see.  
“Too quiet, huh?”

Max scratches the side of his nose and then rubs his cheek and then the back of his head, and not one of his nervous tics helps him to figure out how to respond to the truth being so unabashedly laid in front of him and not by him.  
“It's just like that sometimes”, he reasons, feeling not only hopelessly pathetic but also a sudden, choking need to get somewhere away from under Daniel's all too attentive eyes, it rises up his sides and to his throat like a surge of nausea.  
“Yeah, I hear ya”, Daniel says quietly and the corners of his mouth are grave. Max swallows heavily again and points in the vague direction of the bathroom where the lights are still on and cast streaks of their pure glow in the air.  
“I hope you don’t mind, I wasn’t finished yet when you called”, he glosses - only gently bending the truth, only slightly hesitant, almost inaudibly disoriented. “You can take something from the mini-bar if you want.”

Daniel nods and smiles meekly. Max tries to think of things he could retreat to do that would take a couple of minutes if he actually did plan on doing them and fails to come up with anything but shaving (which he never does in the evening, and Daniel knows that) and brushing his teeth ( _sorry, Daniel, I was just about to wash my teeth and go to bed, but you can stay there and finish the shitty movie!_ ) And he tries to not look rushed and nervous when he walks into the bathroom and decides to merely run the tap for a moment and thus pretend he is doing something else than simply trying to level his own head, steady his breath and soothe his overwrought heart. _Fuck_ , what _is_ it with him now? Daniel hasn’t given the impression that he is after anything but the pleasant company, friendliness to anchor to after an unsatisfactory weekend. _Get your act together, he is your ~~enemy~~ ~~teammate~~ ex-teammate and ~~fuck~~ ~~ex-fuck?~~ friend_. He lays his hands on the white stone counter and the unconditional solidness of it feels comfortingly concrete under the grooves of his palms when he leans against it. He closes his eyes, listens to the lulling gushing of the water, tries to drown the contents of his mind with it this time like he has tried time and time before - gaining small, momentary victories, suffering irredeemable losses all the more.

And he doesn’t need to even open his eyes again to know that Daniel has followed him. Somehow he recognizes the presence as soon as Daniel slips through the door and noiselessly sets foot on the floor tiles, and the aura of warmth surrounding him reaches Max before the tenderness of his touch does. It traces a path - light, so light, a phantom of a caress - up Max’s bicep, across his back, and stops to rest below his right shoulder blade. Max opens his eyes and stares at Daniel’s slender fingers as he turns the tap off with his free hand. The movement reflects from the edge of the mirror. Max can’t bring himself to lift his gaze further up.  
“Still too quiet, huh?” Daniel repeats, hushed and hypnotizing. 

Max’s tongue becomes led and the feeling of heaviness spreads from his gut to his legs. He wants to say myriads and can’t say any of it, he wants to blink but every single one of his muscles seems to have lost their ability to move. He gulps and breathes - that’s what he is still capable of, breathing, taking air in, letting air out - and Daniel takes even that away from him when he places the backs of his left hand fingers lightly under Max’s chin.  
“Look up”, Daniel murmurs. He doesn't push; Max barely feels the digits on him through the numbness that has suddenly conquered him, through the mixture of nerves and yearning, yet his head still moves as if pulled by a string, nearly on its own. His eyes sweep across the reflection of his own arms and stomach, catch his own chest and a glimpse of Daniel's bronzed arm -

and then he faces himself and Daniel.

They stand side by side again, viewing themselves and each other from the gleam of the metal and glass. And seeing them in the mirror is to Max suddenly like only now truly seeing them for the first time this evening. Seeing what they were, seeing what they are. Lonely. Lost.  
“Look at us, Max”, Daniel says again, and Daniel suddenly speaking makes Max horrifyingly aware of the _silence_ that now screams in his ears and lets his mind finally rage without ever asking for his consent. 

Max looks. The blue of his own gaze is rendered joyless and barren, irises diluted to bleak scar tissue. Daniel's eyes are mere abysses adorning him, inky and lifeless under the lights recoiling from them. Max's glass-like pallor lies next to Daniel's summer-hued golden glow and the image of skin on skin comes back to Max unasked, unavoided. Daniel's hair is as tangled and wild a crown as it has been for as long as Max has known of his existence. Max's hair is sleek and softly spiked by the shower. Daniel still has his other hand under Max's chin and the other one on Max's back, and his touch is as careful as ever but somehow Max feels like Daniel could be clawing his insides out of him all the same.

“We look kinda sombre, y’ know”, Daniel says quietly, looking at Max through the mirror. It’s not an accusation, not mockery, not a retort. Max trembles despite trying with all his faltering might not to. He loathes it how deep beneath his skin he has allowed Daniel to get and how tight a grip he has allowed Daniel to take of his whole being.  
“Yeah, I know”, he breathes nevertheless, as much to his own image as to Daniel. He can’t deny he _is_ kind of sombrer these days. Icy and unreachable, sometimes even to himself. “I think I am, if I’m being honest. Things have not been the same this year.”  
Daniel simply nods and moves his fingers from Max’s chin to his arm. His wistfulness feels desolating and Max has to force himself to keep his focus on the mirror instead of reverting to staring at his own hands again. He might be sombrer but somehow it's the lostness he encounters in Daniel that bites into him sharper.  
“They haven’t, yeah”, Daniel says in a dispirited echo and slides his right hand down Max’s back, pausing to draw slow, deformed circles on his waist. “I guess it'd so far seem that neither of us got exactly what he wanted.”

Max loathes it how, even when he hasn’t really let Daniel see anything, Daniel sees everything.  
“It’s going to be okay” is the only thing he can bring himself to respond with, and his dry mouth makes his voice crackle. Each of the lines Daniel sketches on his body with his palm sends tremors shooting through all of him. It's something nearly visceral woven into him, a blend of ambivalence and mindless desire, that suddenly seizes him. And he had almost managed to bury it.

Daniel ceases to idly stroke the curve of Max’s back. Max sees his reflection biting its lip in surfacing uncertainty, something like hesitant craving. Max stays put, paralyzed by his ludicrous inability to decide whether to shove Daniel away or relent in his doggedness. And Daniel lowers his hand another inch, and another, and Max is helpless to stifle the arousal that seems to rise from his sacrum and billow through his flesh when the movement halts right above the cleft of his arse.  
“I don’t want to use you, ‘kay”, Daniel clears to the mirror. Max thinks he can vaguely hear a strain in Daniel’s cadence, a touch of despair, specks of his composure fraying. His hands haven’t moved. Max’s are still resting on the counter. Max wouldn’t _dream_ of _permitting_ Daniel to simply use him, heaven forbid - but his crotch already throbs with his own long suffocated want, he can see and feel his cheeks and neck reddening, and he fights to not look away from the image of them.  
“This isn’t about that and that’s not how I want to handle stuff when it happens.”  
“I wouldn’t let you”, Max answers sternly. He can feel Daniel’s hand shifting again and he can’t help finally closing his eyes when he feels the heat of it radiating against his buttock through his shorts and Daniel slowly flexing his fingers.

“But I also haven’t been able to stop thinkin’ about you all the bloody time”, Daniel continues breathily when he moves to close the infinitesimal gap between their bodies and leans against Max’s back. Max melts and molds into it all seamlessly - the broad voice and accent, the strong outlines of his torso, the fiery being that is Daniel.  
“We shouldn’t”, he gasps first without thinking when he feels Daniel’s left hand taking flight from his forearm and his arm wrapping around him, fingers scooting lower down, butterflying over his lower abdomen. And Max instantly and completely contradicts himself by leaning back into the achingly sweet familiarity of the sensation, against the motion of Daniel’s chest rising and sinking. _I have been thinking about you too_ is what replays in his head and what he tries to say when he pushes his arse almost inadvertently against Daniel’s hand groping him. _About this_.  
“I reckon we didn’t care much about whether we should at any point”, whispers Daniel against the skin of his neck. The ribbons of the hot air of the words brush Max’s ear and send a tide of goosebumps down his side; he tries to press against Daniel’s groin but fails with Daniel’s hand roaming between them, and a wanton mewl escapes him when Daniel cups his already greedy erection with his left palm.  
“Your dick seems to suggest that we should, anyway”, Daniel murmurs - sounding borderline _delighted_ , the asshole - and Max can’t even chuckle proper, not without his breath, having to settle for only smiling witlessly when he starts fiddling his shorts open. He can vaguely catch the movements from the edge of the mirror again, his trembling fingers keep brushing Daniel's knuckles, and he could perhaps be more ashamed of how filthily evident his arousal has become if it wasn't for every spark of Daniel's warmth feeling like a lifeline.

“Look in the mirror”, Daniel says once Max has finished the fleeting battle with the stiff button and ripped his fly open. This time Max's head snaps straight up with fervour, and his lips part in both self-awareness and awe at how blatantly they are on display on the wall in all the glory of their depravity, Daniel’s other hand kneading his arse in earnest and the other settling on the waistband of his boxers. Max’s skin is flushed glowing red by now and naked hunger gleams on Daniel’s face.  
“Fuck, look at us, we’re fucking sinful”, Daniel hisses against Max’s shoulder and nothing but further adds to said sinfulness by trailing his left hand fingers down Max’s zipper before edging them inside his shorts. Max lets out a strangled whine, trying to lean backward and forward and everywhere at once and ending up having to brace himself against the counter once more when Daniel shamelessly runs the ball of his hand down the length of Max’s cock and roughly grabs him.  
“ _Daniel_ ”, Max chokes, somehow shocked yet desperate for it, and all the times he has said _Daniel_ in the exact same way - breathless, zealous, debauched - seem to wind as a recap in his head. Staring at the image of Daniel palming him in the mirror is something from the most degenerate of corners of his imagination, thinly embarrassing, mesmerizing more than he could have pictured.  
“You’re all wet”, Daniel murmurs in a trance; Max is of course fully aware of how grossly gluey his boxers feel and the line itself is sheer bad pornography, but then again, even the worse end of adult entertainment has never failed to turn him on like an eager teenager. “Shit, I want to feel all of you now that I can.”

Max is already at it without Daniel hinting anything more, grappling his shorts and clumsily tugging them down. Daniel joins him and gets rid of the boxers with a ruthless pull, and he takes over from Max as well, hastily shoving the slightly damp bundle of fabrics down to his ankles.  
“Lift your-”, Daniel begins, and Max obeys the first half of the first word already and stumbles out of the garments rendered useless. His cock hangs heavy below his stomach when he bends and his stained boxers leave quickly drying slick stripes on his thighs - oh Christ, what obscenities Daniel is capable of doing to him and how he seems to live and breathe only for them now. Daniel straightens himself quickly, still fully clad, and mouths wolfishly at Max’s shoulder and the crook of his neck.  
“Gimme the lube”, he urges and amply grabs Max’s rear again. Max fumbles for the washbag sitting in his reach and thanks himself for both his habit of leaving the bag open whenever it’s in use and his tendency to still keep the lube in it for some unexplai-

 _unexplained reason_ , his brain repeats and knows better than to believe it. He knows exactly why he still keeps it in the washbag and can’t help smirking at his sad attempt at self-deception. His reasons are incarnating with dizzying speed - he can feel his _reasons_ testingly spreading his asscheeks already and his _reasons_ brush his fingers lightly when they accept the lube he blindly hands behind him.  
“You still have this with you, huh”, Daniel comments, as if having probed Max's mind, and sounds so pleased and unsurprised it would make Max curse himself if he wasn’t so far gone with his heat. Their eyes meet through the looking glass and Max simply shoots Daniel a knowing smile, borderline flirtatious.  
“Has it been waiting for me there or have you- uh, been boisterous?” Daniel continues when he looks away and snaps the tube open. He is as casual and pragmatic as ever when he squeezes a generous amount of the liquid on his palm, discards the tube and starts rubbing his hands together, accompanied by raunchy sounds - but Max suddenly becomes very aware of what must lie behind the question. And he suddenly becomes very aware of how the latter of the options Daniel presented hasn’t really been an option to him in a long time.

Fuck, he hasn’t even fantasized about anyone else in a long time.

“You”, Max starts and then abruptly loses his ability to speak and buck his rear back simultaneously when he feels Daniel’s slick fingers on his hips again. He leans backwards and draws a satisfied grunt out of Daniel when he grinds against the prominently stretched front of his trousers _take the fucking trousers off and fuck me_.  
“‘T has been waiting for you”, Max repeats hoarsely and manages to lock their eyes through the mirror again. Daniel’s right hand glides up and down the curve of his crack, experimental and tormentingly slow. He always _has_ had the kind of eyes Max hasn’t been able to turn his stare from. Max instinctively steps his legs further apart as a wishful invitation and can’t help a sharp exhale again when Daniel rewards him by determinedly sliding one long, nifty digit between his cheeks.  
“For me, eh, Max”, Daniel says dreamily, his finger being quick to find Max's arsehole and then coming to an infuriating halt. Max catches his widening smile from the mirror before he has to screw his eyes shut and lean further forward in order to stay on his feet.  
“I might be a big softy”, Daniel continues, voice thick and clouded, slowly rubbing Max while he speaks and every stroke sweeping past his hole driving Max closer towards losing his senses, “but it's actually kinda nice to hear that.”  
“I kno- _please_ ”, Max wails, trying to spread his legs even wider and pushing his rear back in an attempt to get his point about what exactly the lube has stayed with him for through to Daniel. Having to plead sure is embarrassing but the teasing feels like it’s going to be his death soon; his cock already pounds and keeps leaving occasional smears on his upper thighs, and he feels dirtier than in ages, livelier in a way that makes his insides swerve.

“On your elbows”, Daniel orders and nudges Max's hips gently to make him take a step back. Max is keen to obey by now (and heaven forbid again if anyone else should see him in this state, the proud Dutch Lion so decadently supplicant and bending in the hands of his rival, all anew) and rests his weight on his forearms. The counter smells faintly of soap and chlorine and the juxtaposition of the merciless, cold stone and Daniel's fiery, lithe hands on him only add to him being rendered into a mere mess of sensations and aching need.

Max has to press his forehead against the edge of the sink when the slick tip of Daniel's finger finally enters him and manages to wring a lewd moan out of him.  
“God, fuck, Max”, Daniel hisses behind him, the curses smudged by his own ragged breathing. Max would laugh at his utter incapability to form anything but one-syllable words all of a sudden if he wasn't so fully focused on unclenching his muscles and thinking of ways to let Daniel know how badly he wants to be fucked senseless by him without actually _begging_ for it.  
“I could fucking ravish you.”  
“Do it-”  
“Y’ can take it all”, mutters Daniel under his breath then, barely loud enough for Max to catch it - and _God, fuck_ , what is it about Daniel that makes him seem like he can effortlessly read Max's mind even with his finger up his ass, Max will never come to know, but an inexplicable peak of mindless excitement spears through him at once and he swears his cock jerks merely at Daniel’s cadence.  
“I ca-” he tries, and it hitches and erupts into a hiss through his teeth when Daniel tightens his slippery grip on him and goes all the way in in one push, sluggish but decisive. Daniel’s hands still feel the same; it’s as if Max’s body had already grown to remember every prominent joint and every graceful curve, and the realization messes with Max’s head, almost bringing him to the verge of tears with his white hot heat.  
“More”, he chokes, it’s like a reflex. _More, I want to remember more_. 

“‘kay, Jesus”, Daniel marvels. He briefly retreats and Max barely gets a second to miss the touch before there’s two fingertips pressing against the rim of his hole and he reflexively tilts his rear to meet them. The anticipation sputters in him like a burning fuse.  
“Can you look in the mirror again?” Daniel asks, not moving further, and his voice is so thick with a coating of lust it drips and trickles over Max like honey. “See what we look like.”  
Max could scream at Daniel still prolonging his torments but he gathers his fragmented mind and lifts his head enough to be able to see their reflection again; and both shame and affectionate desire lift their heads in unison in him. He is an absolute, bent wreck now, sweaty and flushed red throughout, the soft spikes of his hair disheveled and sticking into every direction, his cock hanging against his stomach tight and deep red. Daniel stands right behind him, above him, his tan tinted with a rosy glow and eyes blacker than embers, one glistening hand still grabbing Max’s side and the other deliberately teasing his arse.  
“It looks even better than I thought it would, y’ know”, Daniel praises remarkably lightly and makes Max inhale sharply, astounded.  
“What do-”

 _you mean_ only collapses into a breathy cry when Daniel pushes the fingers in and Max can’t stop his eyes squeezing shut and his head snapping down.  
“It means I’ve thought about you”, states Daniel, oozing gratification. He stops almost right away, tries to give Max the chance to adjust, and it still robs the air from Max’s lungs and makes his teeth grit like a vice with the blunt pain. He goes rigid, shakes on his feet - _breathe, breathe, you can take it, it’s so good_. His whole body weight seems to be hanging from his arms now and the edge of the stone slab etching into his elbow gives him something to cling to.  
“Move”, he pants, the word merely bursting out of him. “You can- more.”  
“Y’ say so”, Daniel nods and moves, gradually taking Max apart, step by step - it stings it burns it _torches_ but Max would give everything to keep feeling Daniel inside him like that, willing his body to capture it. He would jerk himself did he not need both his arms to simply stay in balance against the counter; it’s all so much already he can barely stand yet he’s insatiably hungry for the touch.  
“Fuck me”, Max pants again without further thought. “Please, I can’t-”  
“You can’t stand this?” chaffs Daniel: it inevitably escapes Max’s disjointed consciousness how ominously foxy he sounds. “Hold up, I’ll-”

Max can truly _feel_ Daniel trying to curve his fingers as much as he can in the nonexistent space inside him and it’s already enough to make him flinch and moan; when Daniel fucking _succeeds_ in finding his prostate and brushing firmly over it, Max’s knees inevitably dip and Daniel simply outs a satisfied _ahh_ at the reaction.  
“Knew I’d do it”, Daniel murmurs, going unheard by Max, what with him trying to stay upright and breathe. He repeats the move, aiming carefully. Ache and pleasure undulate in Max like currents in his core, exploding into gushes with every slow shift of Daniel’s.  
“Dan-”, he whimpers, completely lost for anything else. “Fuck-”

Daniel’s fingers come to a torturing halt halfway inside Max and Max would be utterly ashamed of the high-pitched mewl that escapes him again had he been any closer to his right mind.  
“Shit, I fucking will, Max”, Daniel grunts from the peak of his already questionable eloquence. And it’s only when he rams his fingers into Max to the extreme and with vigour, and reaches to finally coil his left hand around Max’s length, when Max both remembers and at last somewhat understands why Daniel still has his god-forsaken _clothes_ on.  
“You just-”, Max tries yet again but is destined to fail and stoop to downright sobbing when Daniel gives his cock a testing, tentative stroke. Daniel’s hands seem to be everywhere on him now, sinuous and calibrated to hit his sweetest spots with the well-trained multi-tasking skills of a racing driver and the well-practiced ease of an _~~enemy~~ ~~teammate~~ ex-teammate fuck ex-fuck? friend?_  
“Yeah, I just”, Daniel teases and shifts his fingers inside Max, almost fully out, all the way back in, making Max’s spine itself writhe. “I always like having something to do with my hands.”

Daniel has driven Max so close to the precipice of what feels like insanity itself that Max can only vaguely comprehend where his fingers really are and where they are not - where they thrust wetly into him again and again, strong and hastening, where they start jerking him off with short, easy pulls. Daniel's raspy breathing strokes him like a rough palm on his upper back, Daniel's heat radiates against the backs of his thighs, Daniel fills all his senses and his body, and Max could weep when the thought of how he must have really needed Daniel more than he ever realized splinters his mind. It still is him, after everything.  
“I’m-” he chokes and barely knows it himself. His already spent legs prickle and tremor, the ache and pleasure silently creep and rise and start coiling into an endless cyclone. Daniel hasn't even used anything but his hands to take Max beyond every line. They haven't even fucking-

(“Look up”, floats suddenly into his ears.)

\- _kissed_

Max hisses _shit_ and can barely raise his head enough once more to see the lower part of the mirror but does it all the same, and what he sees - his face lit with blood and life, his skin sweaty and his t-shirt sticking to it, Daniel's left hand jerking his cock fast and dirty, Daniel returning his gaze with flaming eyes and the same hunger ghosting on his lips that consumes Max's flesh - what they were, what they are -

Max comes so hard his legs almost give way; he spills over Daniel's hand and inevitably on the floor as well with his whole body pulsating to it, and it's impossible for him to keep his eyes on their reflection through it. He presses his forehead against the counter again, feeling himself clenching and unclenching around Daniel's fingers and his groin throbbing to his heartbeat. Dizzying sparks of blackness twirl inside his skull and Daniel's hand on his front, still unevenly stroking him through the aftershocks, feels like it's the only thing in the universe still keeping him upright - keeping him on the surface of Earth, preventing him from floating away into oblivion.  
“Max”, Daniel hushes before slowly withdrawing his fingers from Max and instantly grabbing his waist when he twitches at the sensation. “Sit, Max, sit down, I got you.”  
Max drops limply to his knees in front of the counter, with a powerless grunt, Daniel trying to prevent him from crashing on the floor too harshly. Daniel quickly sits next to him and helps him turn around; and when Max has finally reached something resembling a sitting position, Daniel places his arm carefully around his shoulders and pulls him close. 

Blissful lassitude crashes over Max and for a moment he has no strength left for opening his eyes, barely for breathing. He lets it all overcome him - Daniel’s arm around him, Daniel’s chest heaving and luring his chest into the same rhythm, the closeness, the aura of warmth blanketing him as well now. And the longing that worms in the core of it all.  
“Fucking hell, Max”, Daniel whispers and presses a kiss on his temple. “Fucking hell. You have no idea how badly I’ve needed to-”

It’s Daniel suddenly going quiet that speaks the loudest to Max again. He wrestles his eyes open and fixes them on Daniel, gazes straight at him for the first time since trying to escape him into the bathroom. Daniel does look like a mess, heated and confused and lost; but there is a spark to him now that stirs a passionate feeling in Max he can’t quite describe. And when Daniel leans to kiss him at last, it all crashes against his ribcage and scatters across every inch of him.  
“I’m sorry, Max, I’m sorry”, Daniel sighs all of a sudden and presses his forehead against Max’s. It takes Max’s fogged brain aback and he can’t comprehend before Daniel says “I didn’t come here just for this”. And Max simply nods. He somehow knows already.  
“You have no idea how badly I’ve needed you”, Daniel continues then, catching the thought he dropped earlier. Max moves his hand, can’t lift it higher than Daniel’s thigh but lands it where he can, attempting reassurance. Daniel is still fully clothed and he makes no move to try and guide Max’s hand anywhere despite Max clearly seeing he is still hard. It indistinctly puzzles him and then he suddenly understands it repeats to him _I’m sorry_ and _I don’t want to use you, ‘kay_ without Daniel really having to say anything more.  
“Not just this thing, I mean”, Daniel assures nevertheless and then kisses Max’s forehead. “I mean everything. Right now I feel like I’ve basically fucked up everything there was to fuck up and I- I kind of want to know if I’ve fucked us up too. Wouldn’t surprise me if I had, given my record of being pathetic, but I kind of, uh. Wouldn’t want it so. If y’ know what I mean.”

Max shakes his head - and feels it spin - and rests his cheek against Daniel’s shoulder. He wonders for an aimless, ephemeral moment what would happen if he told Daniel to not leave the room, if he refused to let Daniel return to the Marriott, if they stayed like that and let the world sweep past them.  
“I miss you a lot”, he mumbles, hoarser than he meant, and bites his lip. “You have no idea how happy I was when you called. I think it wouldn’t be like that if you had somehow fucked us up.”  
“I was happy that you picked up”, Daniel confesses and sticks a peck in his hair. He sounds more like himself - tired, yes, lost, yes, but the spark that lights his eyes sheds its rays on his voice as well, and it makes Max’s heart inexplicably swell. “I half expected you wouldn’t.”  
“I could’ve been already tucked in”, Max teases and lets the smile bubbling within him spill across his lips. Daniel laughs at him and it feels to Max like his embrace tightening and growing.  
“I’ll take care of that, stallion”, Daniel promises and there flashes a glint of pensiveness in his grin. “I’ll stay for a while longer, if it’s okay with you, and tuck you in before I need to go and catch my own _Z_ s.”

 _Stay forever, if it's okay with you_ , bellows Max's head; but he knows better than for it to be possible. So he simply grins and chuckles _I'll take care of you first_ like in bad pornography and slides his hand smoothly up Daniel's thigh, mapping every breath and every curve and every hitched sigh as he goes, keeping with him and mirroring everything he can of him.  
  



End file.
